


Tentacle Thing

by Amoeba_Anon



Category: Monster Girl Encyclopedia
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:01:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28398102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amoeba_Anon/pseuds/Amoeba_Anon
Kudos: 10





	Tentacle Thing

Bread, eggs, flour, milk, and some assorted vegetables. Was that it for the ingredients she needed? See, this is why she needed to start making an actual grocery list. She'd thought she was set last week, then got home to find that she was missing nearly a third of what she actually needed. 

Manisma huffed. Making another grocery run in a few days because she forgot something stupid was the last thing she wanted. What else was her pantry missing…? Cereal! Wait, no, that wasn't an ingredient. Well, she was close by the breakfast aisle anyway. Better to be efficient.

A trio of thicker tentacles carried her down the walkway, while a few daintier ones held shopping baskets full of what she'd already decided to get- mostly just whatever came to mind. Maybe she'd get lucky and find some of the good cereal! 

Maybe she'd even find him! Oh, then she would be beyond lucky. 

No, Manisma said to herself. It wouldn't matter. She was too scared to actually approach him, and he probably didn't even know she existed to begin with. Who falls in love with a stranger from the grocery store anyway? Weirdos like her, evidently.

With her mood soured, the glum tentacle shuffled over into the breakfast aisle. Aaaand they were out of the good cereal. She had hoped she could at least drown her sorrows in sugary food, but apparently the demon lord wouldn't even let her have that. Unless there was some on the top shelf, maybe? The employees liked to hide it up there sometimes, and most customers couldn't reach that high. If she balanced on her longer few tentacles, though, she could take a peek. 

She rose upwards until her head was a good foot above the lip of the top shelf. How did all the two-legs even survive with such few and short limbs? They all seemed so ungainly. Well, almost all of them. 

Not him. 

Doing her best to shove all thoughts of he-who-would-not-be-named-because-she-didn't-actually-know-his-name aside, Manisma stretched further forwards over the shelf. The first few boxes of cereal weren't anything good, but sometimes the real prize was hiding in the back. She quickly pawed through the boxes with one of her many tentacles, leaning over more and more of the shelf until she at last spotted her target.

Baph-O's. The front of the package featured a grinning goat girl with a few of the cereal's titular rings around her horns, a text bubble next to her extolling the benefits to one's health and libido. Was that why she was so damn horny for him all the time? She didn't know, but Baph-O's were worth a little bit of sexual frustration. Baph-O's were worth their weight in gold, in her humble opinion. She stretched her tentacles a bit further, now leaning almost entirely over the top of the shelf. Almost...had it…

Looking down, she noticed someone on the other side of the shelf in the other aisle. All she could see was a messy mop of hair. Still, it looked familiar for some reason. Was it someone she knew?

Yes, Manisma realized- it was him! Oh god, she had to run away! What if he looked up and saw her staring at him and thought she was some kind of rapist and ran away and hated her forever and she never saw him again and oh nonononono!

The tentacle rapidly shrank back down behind the shelf and back into the aisle. He hadn't looked up at her, thankfully. Phew. But now what? She always ended up in this situation, and it always ended the same way- with her just standing there like an idiot, staring at the love of her life from a distance and not actually talking to him.

No. No, this time would be different. She'd march on up to him, and ask- no, demand that they go on a date! And if he said no, well, she was a mamono. She'd skip the date bit and get right to the good stuff! Right there in the grocery store aisle! All she had to do was go around the shelf and over to him. Easy. She could do that. Time to take what she wanted.

Her "leg" tentacles remained stationary despite her conviction. No, no. She wouldn't do that. No matter how she tried, she couldn't bring herself to do things the 'traditional' way. What if he ended up hating her? What if she made him cry? Oh, that might just break her. That was the absolute last thing she was after. It wasn't like she was some sadist manticore- she wanted love, not tears. Well, love and sex. Lots of sex. And to touch him. What she wouldn't give to run her tendrils through his hair…

Her mind ran wild with all the fantasies she'd come up with involving the two of them. The knowledge that he was just a few feet away on the other side of the shelf was as thrilling as it was frustrating. She'd touched herself countless times while imagining him, using her own tentacles to do what she wanted him to do. She was fortunate in that regard, at least- pleasuring yourself with tentacles was probably a hell of a lot better than trying to get by with sharp talons or something like that. Still, she needed him. His skin. His hands. His fingers. His…

Manisma took a breath. If she kept up this line of thinking then she'd just end up writhing around on the floor in a puddle of her own juices. That, and if she was breathing any harder he might hear her from the next aisle over. Slowly the heat and desperation left her. Her head rested on a shelf.

Well, at least she had Baph-O's. She snaked a long appendage up and grabbed the box of cereal, throwing it into one of her shopping baskets. Why was she like this? Every night she resolved to just go over and talk to him, and every time she had the opportunity she never took it. Her cowardice almost made her want to cry. Slowly she plodded over to the main walkway of the store, looking forlornly at the entrance to the aisle where the source of her frustration had been looking at cookies. She turned the other way to leave.

Maybe next time, she told herself. Maybe next time she would do it. 

She knew she wouldn't.

\---

Warren didn't even need to be here. He was still set on groceries from his last run since he'd been eating out enough to not go through his own stuff. And yet here he was, walking through the store and pretending he needed something without actually grabbing anything. Hopefully nobody noticed that he wasn't really here to shop.

No, he was here for her.

By pure luck, their schedules had seemed to mesh- both of them regularly went to the store on the same day, and at the same time. Again, he didn't really need to go this week, but the thought of going without seeing her for such a long time was too distressing. At this point Warren came to the store to see her as much as he did to shop.

Or entirely to see her, apparently. He idly pawed through a stack of pasta boxes without actually looking at them. He was watching his peripherals instead, hoping he could catch a glimpse of her passing by so he could…

...so he could do something. Yes. Something would be done, alright, even if he wasn't entirely sure what. Something that wouldn't leave her fleeing for the hills, hopefully. What should he do? Maybe make up some kind of contrived scenario to start a conversation? No, that was dumb. God, this would be so much easier if he wasn't such a social brick. No amount of planning and thinking would-

Something passed by the aisle he was in-something colored pink and green. It was her, alright. It took a considerable amount of restraint not to snap his head up and stare, but that might freak her out. Instead, he just kept himself facing the box of penne in his hand while watching her slide by. The way she moved was just… mesmerizing. Warren never thought a tentacle of all things would be the one he'd fall in love with, but now he could hardly imagine being with anyone else.

But this wasn't something he could just rush into. He'd give her some time to shop, and himself some time to think. Wait, no. What if she was almost done, and was about to leave? It had to be now. He couldn't handle having to wait another week!

With a hesitant gait he shuffled out into the main aisle. Where had she gone? She couldn't be far. Warren passed a number of shelves and counters, and had almost decided to double back around when he saw her browsing the bread section of the store. Now that he saw her properly instead, he was reminded why he had come here. She was just so captivating!

And she was facing away from him, unaware of his presence. How was he supposed to start this conversation? Should he just go straight for the "I think you're pretty, do you want to go get lunch" approach, or maybe something a bit more roundabout? The former, he decided. It got his intentions across clearly, and if she said no it still meant less time he had to spend speaking. Oh, he really hoped she didn't say no. It was his fault for getting so hung up on someone whose name he didn't even know, but seeing this mystery tentacle had become the high point of the week for him. 

Internally, Warren scolded himself. Enough daydreaming. He had a job to do! This cute little tentacle wasn't going to be his happily-ever-after if all he did was stare at her ass from across the store.

He took one step, and then a second, and that was about as far as he could go.

The prospect of her rejecting him, or laughing at him, or being disgusted or creeped out by him, was too much; he was overwhelmed with the fear of countless what-if scenarios. Right after he started walking, he veered off behind a pallet of boxed food and continued off into another area of the store while berating himself the whole way. 

Yeah, great job, dipshit. You're definitely what she wants- a socially awkward creep who can't even start a conversation. Why did he ever humor this stupid infatuation to begin with? Who falls in love at a grocery store, of all places? He shook his head, making his way towards the exit now. 

There was always next week. Another opportunity to disappoint himself. Wooooo.

\---

Nesala watched the two of them from the candy stall set up near the baking supplies with annoyance. As a cupid, she was supposed to find enjoyment in the often-difficult nature of helping two people find love; and, most of the time, she did. Helping someone meet their one-and-only as Eros intended was almost as enjoyable for her as it was for those she was assisting. 

But these two… these two just frustrated her. Not because she couldn't find a way to get them together, but because she shouldn't have to help them at all. There was absolutely nothing preventing the two of them from being together except their own social awkwardness. The way both of them openly stared at the other should've clued them in a long, long time ago that their attraction was mutual, but they seemed to be as dense as they were obsessed with each other. Nesala had helped plenty of socially inept people find love, and yet these two took the prize as the most inadvertently infuriating. She was sure every other person in their postal code could tell they were obsessed with each other.

And they'd been so damn close! When the guy with the mop-hair had started walking up towards the tentacle from behind last week, Nesala had been sure that it was a done deal- that the two of them could finally put this grocery-store-romance behind them and go find a nice, private corner to defile each other in. But then the guy pussed out after just two steps toward her! Two steps! It would've been better to not make the fucking effort at all!

But that was fine. That was just fine. If they couldn't cross even the most basic of hurdles themselves, well, how lucky for them to have their own personal nanny to babysit them through the introductory stage of their romance. It wasn't like Nesala was here at the store to SHOP or anything, no! Of course not! Why buy the food she needed to survive when she could watch the world's two least observant morons metaphorically bang their heads against a wall? This was exactly how she wanted to spend her day!

Nesala took a breath. Eros valued the love between any two people, she reminded herself. Even these two.

She hadn't brought her bow. If she ended up needing to use that thing for something as stupid as this, she might as well hang it up and retire. No, this was going to be resolved in a much more direct fashion than Nesala's usual routine: no magic, no enchanted arrows.

The two of them were still standing on opposite ends of the deli, stealing glances at each other with absolutely no subtlety to speak of. Nesala was pretty sure the tentacle had been pretending to look at the same package of cold-cuts for the last ten minutes. The blue-skinned oni employee behind the counter was eyeing her apprehensively, seemingly unsure if the pink and green plant monster was still aware of her surroundings. Her lover-to-be seemed to be doing much the same.

Nesala marched up to him. He didn't notice her at first, but the tentacle did; the poor girl's eyes grew wide at the sight of someone else approaching "her" man. Let her panic for a few seconds, the cupid thought. Maybe she'd grow a spine. Oh, who was she kidding? That was never going to happen.

When Nesala reached the messy-haired dolt, she immediately grabbed onto him and started physically walking him over to the tentacle. Warren gave a surprised yelp and tried to peel her hand off of his forearm as he was dragged across the deli. Maybe if he had actually paid attention to the fact that the person latched onto him was a physical embodiment of love and romance he might have put two and two together, but as it was he just kept trying to break free of her grip. The tentacle, at least, seemed to make the connection. Manisma stared at the cupid dragging him over with a mix of fear, disbelief, and excitement on her face.

Warren was only released by his captor when they had reached Manisma; upon realizing that he was now close enough to touch her, his writhing attempts to escape ceased. His eyes locked onto those of his lover, and both of them stopped doing anything other than breathing.

Nesala grabbed him by the jaw and stuck a finger in his face.

"You," she growled in the voice of a cupid far too annoyed for subtlety, "like her." She moved her accusatory finger away from Warren and towards Manisma. Said finger then turned into an identical jaw-grip on the tentacle.

"And you," she continued, "like him." The finger returned to Warren's face to point at him before the cupid grabbed both of them, bringing both close enough to see just how done with their shit she was.

"Figure it out, or I swear to Eros I'll dose the both of you with enough manticore venom, mothgirl dust, and every other aphrodisiac under the sun until your bodies figure it out for you."

Both man and tentacle had stopped staring at each other to instead stare at their angry pink-clad matchmaker. Nesala gave the two of them one last derisive snort, shook her head, and walked off while muttering angrily. Warren and Manisma continued to watch her until the cupid left their field of view.

"H-hi," Warren muttered, only managing to make eye contact for a split second before lowering his gaze to the floor. Manisma's many tendrils fidgeted and twitched nervously.

"...hi. Do, um… do you really...like me?"

Warren opened his mouth to respond in the affirmative, but found he couldn't quite form the 'yes' he wanted to. Eventually he gave up and simply gave a short but enthusiastic nod.

Manisma's tentacles stilled, along with her breathing. Her eyes grew as wide as saucers, and a single tendril crept up to wrap itself around Warren's hand and upper arm. He finally looked up at her face to find she was smiling shyly at him. 

Warren's last act as a single and un-fucked man was to smile back at her.

\---

The sounds of wet, vigorous, and many-limbed loving reached Nesala's ears from across the store. At least those two were happy. Now that the situation was handled, the thought occurred to her that she may have been a little overly aggressive in her tactics to get them together.

Well, they needed it, she reassured herself. It wasn't like they were about to get anywhere without a little encouragement. It seemed like the employees were about to have another mess to clean up if the static-laden and angry chatter over the P.A. was any indication, but the cupid only found relief in the fact that she wouldn't have to make good on her earlier threat.

Nesala smiled despite her previous frustration. Those two's obliviousness had been infuriating, but part of her had to admit it was kind of sweet. She almost regretted not sticking around to see them consummate things. Oh well. Time to find another couple to bring together.


End file.
